More than two weeks after the House passed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) still has not sent them to the Senate for trial, ostensibly in an attempt to force concessions from Republicans that would allow for additional witnesses and new documents to be brought forth during the next phase of impeachment.
According to an op-ed written by New Books in Politics podcaster and Politico Magazine contributing editor Bill Scher, Pelosi’s ongoing delay tactics cannot continue indefinitely and are something Democrats may soon come to regret.
Costly concessions
With regard to the precise contours of a Trump impeachment trial in the upper chamber, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently said, “We haven’t ruled out witnesses.”
He continued, “We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton – fair is fair.”
However, McConnell has also indicated that any such concession will come with a price, and it’s one that Democrats probably don’t want to pay, as Scher aptly noted.
Calling the Bidens
“If we go down the witness path, we’re going to want the whistleblower,” McConnell told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade.
“We’re going to want Hunter Biden,” he warned. “You can see here that this is the kind of mutual assured destruction episode that will go on for a long time.”
Given this fact, the Kentucky Republican insisted that the best option now for Democrats would be to “vote and move on.”
Landmines abound for Dems
Having their current presidential frontrunner and/or his embattled son called to testify could, as Scher asserts, yield uncomfortable revelations and cause a truly awkward scene for Democrats, as former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin has said in a sworn affidavit that he was ousted from his job because he was investigating Burisma Holdings, the energy firm on whose board Hunter Biden sat.
While at a Council on Foreign Relations event in 2016, the elder Biden openly bragged on camera about threatening to withhold American aid unless Shokin was removed from office. “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” the then-vice president gloated before an audience. “Well, son of a b***h. He got fired.”
Biden has also claimed that he and his son never discussed the latter’s Ukrainian business dealings, but this past September, Fox News published a photo of Joe and Hunter Biden golfing with a Burisma executive, a relationship about which Senate Republicans would surely like to probe further.
After initially saying he would defy a subpoena to testify in an impeachment trial, Biden later promised to “abide by whatever was legally required of me,” adding “I always have.” When asked if he would fight a subpoena in court, Biden said he would “cross that bridge when we come to it.”
No comments: